“Whoa, whoa!” I interrupted. “Why are you walking like that? Why are you pretending to poof up your hair?”

“I’m supposed to,” she explained calmly. “The music teacher said to be sexy.”

My eyebrows flew up.

“Or sassy, I think.”

“Well, which word was it?” I pressed. “Sexy or sassy? Tell me the truth, because I’m walking toward the phone.”

My daughter, unaware of the nuance between the words in question, guessed the answer that stopped my head from spinning. Judging by my reaction, she affirmed her choice: “Sassy, definitely.”

For two weeks, I’ve taken cleansing breaths. There are mild whisperings among the chick mothers. One purchased a fluffy yellow boa to accompany her daughter’s costume, only to witness her swirl it with the expertise of a burlesque dancer.

By the time my mother graduated from high school, she had tired of hearing what women couldn’t do. She didn’t want to be regarded as just a cute chick. She flew the coop and got right to the business of overachieving. My siblings and I nicknamed her She-rah. She taught us about girl power and gender equality.

She forbade us from tolerating words that minimized our worth. She discouraged us from playing the real-life role of a cute chick.

But this situation is different, I tell myself. It’s an innocent play, an innocent casting, an innocent song. My daughter never knew a time when women couldn’t participate in school sports. She knows only that a woman is running for president, not that women couldn’t vote less than a century ago. She knows neither that the word “chick” is disrespectful nor the meaning of the words listed as its synonyms: doll and wench.

I am aware that I’m a victim of political correctness gone awry. I am also a mother hell-bent on ensuring that her daughter isn’t trained to shake her rump and act coy at the ripe ol’ age of 7. In the interest of my daughter’s innocence, I’ve deemed this particular battle not worth waging.

Besides, my tummy only has a few more days to grumble, until the cute chicks hit their final note: